music of the night

Night-time sharpens, heightens each sensation.
Darkness stirs and wakes imagination.
Your lips awaken, brushing the gentle
splendor of promises, trembling
desire drowns sleep, a star sparkling
like a cross lay down on the fur,
a soft bed of beard, receiving tears.

The dream returns, never leaving,
breathing steam, sultry love unfurls
an arm, gentle eyes, soulful embraces.

Process notes: The first two lines from Phantom of the Opera’s Music of the Night.

she cries your name

Beth Orton, She Cries Your Name (Trailer Park, 1996)

Lyrics:

Falling from the western selves
To find yourself alone again
Wonderin’ where you have been
Your lonely voice
Calls across the star lit coast
Reaching out to be seen

She cries your name
Three times again
She cries your name
How long can this love remain?

Scratch beneath the surface screen
Of what we say and what we seem
Is there truth to be seen?
She’s cryin’ out your name
But her scream sounds the same
How fickle fate can be

She cries your name
Three times again
She cries your name
How long can this love remain?

Birds which scream for territory
Can learn to sing euphorically
Given time that is revealed??
There’s a wasteland in his soul
The burned out trees will leave you cold
Living out beside the hill

She cries your name
Three times again
She cries your name
How long can this love remain?

She cries your name
Three times again
She cries your name
How long can this love remain?

She cries your name
Twelve times again
She cries your name
How long can this love remain?

china roses

Enya, China Roses

Lyrics:

Who can tell me if we have heaven,
who can say the way it should be;
Moonlight holly, the Sappho Comet,
Angel’s tears below a tree.

You talk of the break of morning
as you view the new aurora,
Cloud in crimson, the key of heaven,
one love carved in acajou.

One told me of China Roses,
One a Thousand nights and one night,
Earth’s last picture, the end of evening:
hue of indigo and blue.

A new moon leads me to
woods of dreams and I follow.
A new world waits for me;
my dream, my way.

I know that if I have heaven
there is nothing to desire.
Rain and river, a world of wonder
may be paradise to me.

I see the sun.
I see the stars.

only time

Enya, Only Time

Lyrics:
Who can say
where the road goes
where the day flows
- only time
And who can say
if your love grows
as your heart chose
- only time

Who can say
why your heart sighs
as your love flies
- only time
And who can say
why your heart cries
when your love lies
- only time

Who can say
when the roads meet
that love might be
in your heart

And who can say
when the day sleeps
if the night keeps
all your heart

Night keeps all your heart

Who can say
if your love grows
as your heart chose
- only time
And who can say
where the road goes
where the day flows
- only time

Who knows – only time
Who knows – only time

glowering moon

I’m embarrassed writing soft lyrics,
the moon everywhere I turn. Heavy
head moves skimming the horizon, sees
two paths, two riders tripping in mad tongues.
Then a small wonder, a speckled deer drinks
a silent pool, partly curtained fog clears
a single path, bathed in gold-hued mews.

**

The fairy speaks Gaelic, in dulcet tones,
gossamer of gold, curls of hair framing
her face. She touched air, stardust of wand -
my head spins, turns to see the new moon,
glowering. Doesn’t it make you want to
laugh, how we sip green tea under the eaves
shading this tea-house moon, still lingering?

inessential things

There’s a cockroach dead in the sink.
I perfumed it
  (be a mother, do it)
so it lay unmoved, helpless. I skulked around
  (the kids and I won’t go near the sink)
waiting for you this afternoon, thinking how your hand,
  without thinking,
will reach for feelers, like the small matter it is.
  (I love how you shoot flies with rubber band.)

My mind is draped in small fears like this.
Shame on me. (I need a big bear.)

You were still not back.
  (Ants have cannibalized the cockroach’s leg,
  our son said, soldiers carting loot; torso remained.)

Your hands aren’t big like a bear’s.
A writer’s hand, almost a poet’s hand,
  missing by a mile, fragile like
a girl’s, full of brittle bones.
  (I still think a man’s hand shouldn’t be this soft.)

Looking for a prophecy,
I peered into a petri dish. Clouds of letters floated
  in alphabet soup.
  (Our kids love Campbell’s. Do they have a bit of English blood?)
Don’t mind me leaning
against glass, its translucence so clear,
  (just minding my p’s and q’s)
small tweezer in hand, absent-mindedly
picking out letters, rounded edges gripped in steel,
  arranged them neatly, side by side, into
two perfect blue sets, in dim light.

Process notes: This is my breaking-out-of-my-usual-pattern poem. It feels different, looser structure. The narrative also flows kind of loosely. Read Write Poem’s prompt here.

standing still

Jewel’s Standing Still (This Way, 2001)

Lyrics :
Cutting through the darkest night with my two head lights
Trying to keep it clear, but I’m losing it here, to the twilight
There’s a dead end to my left, there’s a burning bush to my right
You aren’t in sight, you aren’t in sight

Do you want me
Like I want you

Or am I standing still
Beneath the darkened sky
Or am I standing still
With the scenery flying by
Or am I standing still
Out of the corner of my eye
Was that you
Passing my by

Mother’s on the stoop, boys in souped up coupes, on this hot summer night
Between fight and flight is the blind man’s sight and a choice that’s right
I roll the window down, feel like I’m, I’m gonna drown, in this strange town
Feel broken down, I feel broken down

Do you need me
Like I need you

Or am I standing still
Beneath the darkened sky
Or am I standing still
With the scenery flying by
Or am I standing still
Out of the corner of my eye
Was that you
Passing my by

Sweet sorrow – He said call tomorrow
Sweet sorrow – He said call tomorrow

Do you love me
Like I love you

Or am I standing still
Beneath the darkened sky
Or am I standing still
With the scenery flying by
Or am I standing still
Out of the corner of my eye
Was that you
Passing me by

Are you passing me by
Passing me by
Do you want me
Passing me by

Do you need me
Like I need you too
And do you want me
Like I want you
(Passing me by)

Are you passing me by
Or am I standing still

in the end

Linkin Park, In the End (Hybrid Theory, 2000)

Lyrics:
It starts with one thing
I don’t know why
It doesn’t even matter how hard you try keep that in mind
I designed this rhyme
To explain in due time
All I know
Time is a valuable thing
Watch it fly by as the pendulum swings
Watch it count down to the end of the day
The clock ticks life away
It’s so unreal
Didn’t look out below
Watch the time go right out the window
Trying to hold on, but didn’t even know
Wasted it all just to watch you go
I kept everything inside and even though I tried, it all fell apart
What it meant to me will eventually be a memory of a time when

I tried so hard
And got so far
But in the end
It doesn’t even matter
I had to fall
To lose it all
But in the end
It doesn’t even matter

One thing, I don’t know why
It doesn’t even matter how hard you try, keep that in mind
I designed this rhyme, to explain in due time
I tried so hard
In spite of the way you were mocking me
Acting like I was part of your property
Remembering all the times you fought with me
I’m surprised it got so (far)
Things aren’t the way they were before
You wouldn’t even recognize me anymore
Not that you knew me back then
But it all comes back to me (in the end)
You kept everything inside and even though I tried, it all fell apart
What it meant to me will eventually be a memory of a time when I

Chorus

I’ve put my trust in you
Pushed as far as I can go
And for all this
There’s only one thing you should know (2x) Chorus

dreaming tiger

We met as if in a dream,
strangeness must shape, must
pull the drapes over us,
sleep with us, find between the sheets
a feral dark, meet its wet tongue,
the fur of warmth, awakening
in half sleep, comfort given
out of its will, waves lapping
over our thighs, rolling like thunder,
over and over.

***

In Afrika, we put on mink coats,
richly hued were our skins,
one male, one female, frisking,
born to play like cubs once more,
pawing our way of exploring,
turning over, tickling each other’s
underbelly. Strangeness tossing on
separate sheets, we met as if in a dream,
remembering a wonderful mimicry,
nicked by my tiger’s claws, wound
licked through by that feral thing.

Process notes: This is poem number three for the cento poem series.

roof

We climbed a staircase spiralling
upward, almost reaching a star.
The deep blue shifted before our eyes.
Restlessness stirred the beast within,
a broken song the ocean remembers,
words tumbling out notes on the wind,
scrambling out of soul, out on a limb.

Process notes: My second poem inspired by the cento poem made with cobbled lines from William Stafford’s randomly selected poems. See previous post, The ocean remembers.